The limp...

Miss Marley often has a slight limp in her back right leg. She's got a shallow hip joint in that back leg. The last month she has been limping more and more often and when she runs she kicks that right leg out. This is one of the ways I keep track of her pain level.

Tonight she has a very definite limp in her bad leg. I feel awful that she is in that much pain. She's got a strained muscle back there and I wonder if the treatment yesterday has made her sore today. That's happened in the past where she will be sore for a day or two and then I see a lot of improvement after a couple of days.

They say that most dogs innately hide their pain. I know this to be true of Dylan. He only shows he is in pain when it's really bad!! I'm not sure if Marley has come to accept her structural issues as a part of life and so therefore she displays signs of being in pain easier. Or if she's in A LOT of pain and needs to be taking pain medication. I wonder if I could just notice smaller variances of normal behavior with her because I know she has issues. So I see her signs of pain when they are more mild than other dogs because I pay very close attention to her regular movements. On the other hand, she could be hiding her pain so by the time I am able to see it, it could be severe.

I know that if it were me, I'd want pain meds at some point. I was taking them over the weekend because of my damned knee. In my opinion, once pain passes a certain level, some pain medication is totally appropriate. I just don't know where that line is for Marley. It's times like these that I wish she were human, at least just for a moment. Just long enough to tell me exactly how she feels and what she wants me to do about it.

All I really know is that the road to healing is going to be longer than I wished it would be. I was hoping that things were getting back to normal. I forgot that a major trauma can cause damage to your entire body. Up until now, I'd mostly worried about the injuries to her abdomen. I now know I need to focus on doing what I can to help heal her body as a whole.